Nowadays, agricultural harvesting machines, such as field choppers and, in particular, combine harvesters, are relatively complex machines with a large number of operating parameters, which are set at suitable values so as to attain an approximately optimal operating result in the harvesting process. From the state of the art, systems are known that are connected with sensors for the determination of crop characteristics and/or results of processes that are taking place in the harvesting machine, and that monitor whether the machine is working in an orderly manner and/or automatically determine optimized operating parameters and, by controlling actuators, automatically set them or display them to the operator, who can then set them.
Such systems, however, also require data regarding the configuration of the individual harvesting machine since, without knowing, for example, how many chopper blades are distributed around the circumference of the chopper drum of a field chopper, an automatic specification of a feed roller rotational speed to attain a desired cutting length is not possible.
Analogously, for the automatic setting of operating parameters of a cleaning device of a combine harvester, it is necessary that data regarding the type and size of the cleaning device be available.
In many cases, an operator contacts a support service on the phone in order to be advised when taking care of problems while harvesting. Here, too, information regarding the configuration of the harvesting machine is required so as to be able to make substantiated statements, but the information is often not available to the operator or the support service.
In the state of the art, solutions are described in which the configuration of elements of the harvesting machine is determined by sensors that interact with the elements and, for example, determine the number of the chopper blades of a chopper drum of a field chopper with the aid of vibrations arising during rotation (DE 10 2009 046 821 A1).
Furthermore, the proposal has been made to equip the control unit with a data bank, into which data regarding the configuration of the harvesting machine are entered by the factory during production. In the case of a reconstruction of the harvesting machine, the data are updated by the workshop personnel in a manner that was not described in more detail (EP 1 564 688 A1).
Furthermore, DE 199 49 994 A1 describes an active measurement value determining device, which is equipped with its own power supply and which is also equipped with a storage device for identification data and a transponder. The identification data can identify a component, a component group, or an apparatus on which the measurement value determining device has been placed. The identification data are recorded by a reading device of a carrier vehicle (which can be, for example, a tractor or a chopper), on which the assembly with the measurement value determining device has been placed, and are sent to its control electronics so that the activities needed for the adaptation are automatically triggered by the control electronics of the carrier vehicle.
An identification of a cultivation device of a tractor by means of an RFID chip, affixed to the cultivation device, and a reading device of the tractor is described in DE 10 2007 034 167 A1.
In the presentation “Mobile service worlds in the international service of machine and plant construction” by M. Goertz, found on Sep. 24, 2014 at the internet address http://www.simobit.de/documents/Goertz_MSW_Hagen_03062009.pdf, an identification of components of stationary machines by RFID labels is described, but it is also mentioned that under certain circumstances, among other things as a result of coverings, such labels cannot be read from the outside.